The Middy and the Moors: An Algerine Story by R. M. Ballantyne (lightest ebook reader txt) 📕

could not help admitting that it was, as long as it lasted! “But what,” he asked, “what security has Ben-Ahmed that you won’t be as false to him as you recommend me to be?”

“I lub massa too!” answered the negro, with a bland smile.

“What! love a man whom you have described to me as the most obstinate fellow you ever knew?”

“Ob course I do,” returned Peter. “W’y not? A obs’nit man may be as good as anoder man what can be shoved about any way you please. Ha! you not know yit what it is to hab a bad massa. Wait a bit; you find it out, p’r’aps, soon enough. Look yar.”

He bared his bosom as he spoke, and displayed to his wondering and sympathetic friend a mass of old scars and gashes and healed-up sores.

“Dis what my last massa do to me, ’cause I not quite as smart as he wish. De back am wuss. Oh, if you know’d a bad massa, you’d be thankful to-day for gettin’ a good un. Now, what I say is, nobody never knows what’s a-goin’ to turn up. You just keep quiet an’ wait. Some slabes yar hab waited patiently for ten-fifteen year, an’ more. What den? Sure to ’scape sooner or later. Many are ransum in a year or two. Oders longer. Lots ob ’em die, an’ ’scape dat way. Keep up your heart, Geo’ge, whateber you do, and, if you won’t break your word-ob-honour, something else’ll be sure to turn up.”

Although the negro’s mode of affording comfort and encouragement was not based entirely on sound principles, his cheery and hopeful manner went a long way to lighten the load of care that had been settling down like a dead weight on young Foster’s heart, and he returned to his work with a happier spirit than he had possessed since the day he leaped upon the deck of the pirate vessel. That night he spent under the same roof with his black friend and a number of the other slaves, none of whom, however, were his countrymen, or could speak any language that he understood. His bed was the tiled floor of an out-house, but there was plenty of straw on it. He had only one blanket, but the nights as well as days were warm, and his food, although of the simplest kind and chiefly vegetable, was good in quality and sufficient in quantity.

The next day, at the first blush of morning light, he was aroused with the other slaves by Peter the Great, who, he found, was the Moor’s overseer of domestics. He was put to the same work as before, but that day his friend the negro was sent off on a mission that was to detain him several days from home. Another man took Peter’s place, but, as he spoke neither English nor French, no communication passed between the overseer and slave except by signs. As, however, the particular job on which he had been put was simple, this did not matter. During the period of Peter’s absence the poor youth felt the oppression of his isolated condition keenly. He sank to a lower condition than before, and when his friend returned, he was surprised to find how much of his happiness depended on the sight of his jovial black face!

“Now, Geo’ge,” was the negro’s first remark on seeing him, “you’s down in de blues again!”

“Well, I confess I have not been very bright in your absence, Peter. Not a soul to speak a word to; nothing but my own thoughts to entertain me; and poor entertainment they have been. D’you know, Peter, I think I should die if it were not for you.”

“Nebber a bit ob it, massa. You’s too cheeky to die soon. I’s noticed, in my ’sperience, dat de young slabes as has got most self-conceit an’ imprence is allers hardest to kill.”

“I scarce know whether to take that as encouragement or otherwise,” returned Foster, with the first laugh he had given vent to for a long time.

“Take it how you please, Geo’ge, as de doctor said to de dyin’ man—won’t matter much in de long-run. But come ’long wid me an’ let’s hab a talk ober it all. Let’s go to de bower.”

In the bower the poor middy found some consolation by pouring his sorrows into the great black sympathetic breast of Peter the Great, though it must be confessed that Peter occasionally took a strange way to comfort him. One of the negro’s perplexities lay in the difficulty he had to convince our midshipman of his great good-fortune in having fallen into the hands of a kind master, and having escaped the terrible fate of the many who had cruel tyrants as their owners, who were tortured and beaten when too ill to work, who had bad food to eat and not too much of it, and who were whipped to death sometimes when they rebelled. Although Foster listened and considered attentively, he failed to appreciate what his friend sought to impress, and continued in a state of almost overwhelming depression because of the simple fact that he was a slave—a bought and sold slave!

“Now, look yar, Geo’ge,” said the negro, remonstratively, “you is a slabe; das a fact, an’ no application ob fut rule or compasses, or the mul’plication table, or any oder table, kin change dat. Dere you am—a slabe! But you ain’t a ’bused slabe, a whacked slabe, a tortered slabe, a dead slabe. You’re all alibe an’ kickin’, Geo’ge! So you cheer up, an’ somet’ing sure to come ob it; an’ if not’ing comes ob it, w’y, de cheerin’ up hab come ob it anyhow.”

Foster smiled faintly at this philosophical view of his case, and did make a brave effort to follow the advice of his friend.

“Das right, now, Geo’ge; you laugh an’ grow fat. Moreober, you go to work now, for if massa come an’ find us here, he’s bound to know de reason why! Go to work, Geo’ge, an’ forgit your troubles. Das my way—an’ I’s got a heap o’ troubles, bress you!”

So saying, Peter the Great rose and left our forlorn midshipman sitting in the arbour, where he remained for some time ruminating on past, present, and future instead of going to work.

Apart from the fact of his being a slave, the youth’s condition at the moment was by no means disagreeable, for he was seated in a garden which must have borne no little resemblance to the great original of Eden, in a climate that may well be described as heavenly, with a view before him of similar gardens which swept in all their rich luxuriance over the slopes in front of him until they terminated on the edge of the blue and sparkling sea.

While seated there, lost in reverie, he was startled by the sound of approaching footsteps—very different indeed from the heavy tread of his friend Peter. A guilty conscience made him glance round for a way of escape, but there was only one entrance to the bower. While he was hesitating how to act, an opening in the foliage afforded him a passing glimpse of a female in the rich dress of a Moorish lady.

He was greatly surprised, being well aware of the jealousy with which Mohammedans guard their ladies from the eyes of men. The explanation might lie in this, that Ben-Ahmed, being eccentric in this as in most other matters, afforded the inmates of his harem unusual liberty. Before he had time to think much on the subject, however, the lady in question turned into the arbour and stood before him.

If the word “thunderstruck” did justice in any degree to the state of mind which we wish to describe we would gladly use it, but it does not. Every language, from Gaelic to Chinese, equally fails to furnish an adequate word. We therefore avoid the impossible and proceed, merely remarking that from the expression of both faces it was evident that each had met with a crushing surprise.

We can understand somewhat the midshipman’s state of mind, for the being who stood before him was—was—well, we are again nonplussed! Suffice it to say that she was a girl of fifteen summers—the other forty-five seasons being, of course, understood. Beauty of feature and complexion she had, but these were lost, as it were, and almost forgotten, in her beauty of expression—tenderness, gentleness, urbanity, simplicity, and benignity in a state of fusion! Now, do not run away, reader, with the idea of an Eastern princess, with gorgeous black eyes, raven hair, tall and graceful form, etcetera! This apparition was fair, blue-eyed, golden-haired, girlish, sylph-like. She was graceful, indeed, as the gazelle, but not tall, and with an air of suavity that was irresistibly attractive. She had a “good” face as well as a beautiful, and there was a slightly pitiful look about the eyebrows that seemed to want smoothing away.

How earnestly George Foster desired—with a gush of pity, or something of that sort—to smooth it away. But he had too much delicacy of feeling as well as common sense to offer his services just then.

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the girl, in perfect English, as she hastily threw a thin gauze veil over her face, “forgive me! I did not know you were here—else—my veil—but why should I mind such customs? You are an Englishman, I think?”

Foster did not feel quite sure at that moment whether he was English, Irish, Scotch, or Dutch, so he looked foolish and said—

“Y–yes.”

“I knew it. I was sure of it! Oh! I am so glad!” exclaimed the girl, clasping her delicate little hands together and bursting into tears.

This was such a very unexpected climax, and so closely resembled the conduct of a child, that it suddenly restored our midshipman to self-possession. Stepping quickly forward, he took one of the girl’s hands in his, laid his other hand on her shoulder, and said—

“Don’t cry, my poor child! If I can help you in any way, I’ll be only too glad; but pray don’t, don’t cry so.”

“I—I—can’t help it,” sobbed the girl, pulling away her hand—not on account of propriety, by any means: that never entered her young head—but for the purpose of searching for a kerchief in a pocket that was always undiscoverable among bewildering folds. “If—if—you only knew how long, long it is since I heard an English—(where is that thing!)—an English voice, you would not wonder. And my father, my dear, dear, darling father—I have not heard of him for—for—”

Here the poor thing broke down again and sobbed aloud, while the midshipman looked on, imbecile and helpless. “Pray, don’t cry,” said Foster again earnestly. “Who are you? where did you come from? Who and where is your father? Do tell me, and how I can help you, for we may be interrupted?”

This last remark did more to quiet the girl than anything else he had said.

“You are right,” she replied, drying her eyes quickly. “And, do you know the danger you run if found conversing with me?”

“No—not great danger, I hope?”

“The danger of being scourged to death, perhaps,” she replied.

“Then pray do be quick, for I’d rather not get such a whipping—even for your sake!”

“But our owner is not cruel,” continued the girl. “He is kind—”

“Owner! Is he not, then, your husband?”

“Oh, no. He says he is keeping me for his son, who is away on a long voyage. I have never seen him—and—I have such a dread of his coming back!”

“But you are English, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“And your father?”

“He is also English, and a slave. We have not met, nor have I heard of him, since we were parted on board ship many months ago. Listen!”